This empirically titled compilation collects some of John Lee Hooker’s earliest singles, recorded between 1948 and 1952. Even compared with near-contemporaneous work by Muddy Waters and Little Walter, this is rough, raw stuff, many tracks instrumented only by Hooker’s stinging silver strings and serrated vocals, footstomps keeping time.

Perhaps the key performance here is his debut, “Boogie Chillen”. Maybe not even blues in its strictest definition, it sounds like the first twitchings and rumblings of the beast that would become rock ‘n’ roll. So many others have photocopied this rhythm, Led Zeppelin, ZZ Top, The Rolling Stones and Van Morrison among them; it even recurs on several occasions elsewhere on this album. “Crawling King Snake” is the other famous three minutes here, by virtue of The Doors’ somewhat more sedated and lubricated cover. Other moments are frankly bizarre, such as “Cold Chills”, on which Hooker’s voice and guitar are accompanied by what sounds like a glockenspiel and a fairground organ. However, unless you have an unshakeable desire to own these songs in this particular format, I suspect there are more efficient ways of obtaining them.

Doxy’s public domain-plundering vinyl reissue sounds pretty ropey, although it’s almost certainly due to the quality of the original recordings rather than down to the company being too lazy to hunt down a decent-sounding CD to cut the album from (compare and contrast with their dreadful version of “Here’s Little Richard”, perhaps the worst-sounding record I’ve had the misfortune to own).These songs aren’t ever going to be audiophile delights, no matter how many grams of “HQ virgin vinyl” are thrown at them.

This 1961 album is notable for several reasons. Firstly, it was the original home to “Boom Boom”, a song that, thanks to its appropriation by both The Animals and advertisers, has arguably become one of John Lee’s signature tunes. Secondly, the guitarist is backed here members of Motown’s Funk Brothers, including bassist James Jamerson.

Unfortunately for me, though, it’s less notable for its music. “Take A Look At Yourself” is a variation on the theme of Bo Diddley’s “Before You Accuse Me”, and amidst tales of regret (“Lost A Good Girl”) and self-improvement (“A New Leaf”) the trivial frivolity of “Onions” is a bit of a shock. It all slides pleasantly past, but seems repetitive and unmemorable in ways you’d never catch, say, a Muddy Waters album being.

Charly’s reissue makes some play about preserving the original cover art, but goes all to pieces elsewhere, its retrospective sleevenote padded out with glib generalities and the tracklist padded out with bonus tracks that aren’t identified as such. If the sound quality’s reasonably good that’s probably more likely to be a freakish accident than a product of effort or interest on the part of anyone at the label.